44.04.01 Магистратура. Географическое образование (Деловой иностранный язык)

Task 1.

Read the text «Higher Education in the United States». Find English equivalents for the following Russian words and expressions:

выпускники, заявления, подавать заявление, аспирантура, завоевать репутацию,

Out of more than three million students who graduate from high school each year, about one million go on for higher education. A college at a leading university might receive applications from two percent of these high school graduates, and then accept only one out of every ten who apply. Successful applicants at such colleges are usually chosen on the basis of a) their high school records; b) recommendations from their high school teachers; c) their scores on the Scholastic Aptitude tests (SATs).

The system of higher education in the United States is complex. It comprises three categories of institutions: 1) the university, which may contain a) several colleges for undergraduate students seeking a bachelor’s (four-year) degree and b) one or more graduate schools for those continuing in specialized studies  beyond the bachelor’s degree to obtain a master’s or a doctoral degree; 2) the technical training institutions at which high school graduates may take courses raging from six months to four years in duration and learn a wide variety of technical skills, from hair styling through business accounting to computer programming; 3) the two-year, or community college, from which students may enter many professions or may transfer to four-year colleges.

Any of these institutions depending on the source of its funding. Some universities and colleges have, over time, gained reputations for offering particularly challenging courses and for providing their students with a higher quality of education. The factors determining whether an institution is one of the best or one of the lower prestige are quality of teaching faculty; quality of research faculties; amount of funding available for libraries, special programs, etc.; and the competence and number of applicants for admission, i.e.  how selective the institution can be in choosing its students. The more desirable institutions are generally more costly to attend (as the IVY League institutions, including Brown University, Columbia College, Cornell University (College of Arts and Sciences), Dartmouth College, Harvard Radcliffe, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, Yale University) and having graduated from one of them brings distinct advantages as the individual seeks employment opportunities.

SAT is a test in mathematics and verbal ability. It is taken in the 11-th and 12-th grade of high school two or three times. SAT is preceded by PSAT (preparatory), a test to give a student a warm-up exercise for the SAT and indicate their probable SAT scoring range. ACT - the American College Testing program is similar to SAT but scores social studies and the natural studies. The test is taken once when required by certain colleges and universities. Both tests (SAT, ACT) are wildly used in the admission process of US colleges and universities.

Write down an essay «Higher Education in America».

Useful Information How to Write an Essay.

 The ability to write well-organized, concise (сжатые, выразительные) essays is essential. The material must be presented in logical order and clear language. An essay consists of a number of paragraphs. Here are some hints on paragraph writing:

Your essay should be relevant to the set topic in both content and focus; the essay should be the result of wide reading, taking notes, sorting out information, theories and ideas, and coming to well-thought-out conclusions.

Essay paragraphs may be sorted into functional groups such as introductory, developmental, transitional, summarising.

In any paragraph there are introducers (which are sentences that establish the topic focus of the paragraph as a whole, the topic sentence in the paragraph contains a key idea); developers (which present examples or details of various kinds to support the ideas of the topic sentence); terminators or restatement sentences (which logically conclude the ideas discussed in the paragraph).

Depending upon the purpose or intent of the writer, particular paragraphs may be thought of aiming to persuade, inform, argue, or excite. Paragraphs may also be classified according to such techniques of development as comparison, contrast, description, classification, generalization etc.

 Task  2     

Write down an annotation of the article «British and American Universities» using the model and some expressions below:

This article deals with ...

It is pointed out ..

It is stressed that ...

It should be remembered that ...

                                   British and American Universities

British and American Universities are similar in their pursuit of knowledge (в погоне за знаниями) as a goal but are quite different in their organization and operation.

English universities and colleges because of their selective intake, are relatively small. American Universities, different colleges and professional schools, are large, sometimes with 20,000 to 25,000 students on one campus (территория колледжа). Teacher training colleges and polytechnics are alternative to the university course for some students in Britain, being established for specific purposes. In contrast, virtually all schools of education, engineering and business studies, are integral parts of universities in the United States. In Britain universities receive about 70% of their financial support through Parliamentary grants. Similarly, in the US, public institutions receive about 75% of their funds from local, state and federal sources, but private colleges and universities receive little or no government support. In the UK, personal aid is provided by the government to over 80% of the students through local educational authorities according to the parents’ income. In the US student’s aid is administrated by the university or the sponsoring agency and is provided by private organizations and the state or federal governments.

The structure of almost all British universities (except Oxford and Cambridge) is similar to Russian ones, with a central administration in the main building, various faculties, and within the faculties, various departments. Professors run the departments, deans rule the faculties, and at the top of the hierarchy is the Vice Chancellor, equivalent to your Rector. He or she has some kind of council to help govern the university.

Oxford and Cambridge, however, are quite different. You must imagine a federation of autonomous republics with a common foreign policy (dealing with the government and other universities) and with a common budget (money from the government and other national and international sources) and a set of common values (the teaching of undergraduates and graduates and the pursuit of scholarly research), which are at the same time fiercely independent «republics» with their own funds, their own students, their own projects and enthusiasm. Both the University and its colleges are very democratic institutions. Every member of the university is also a member of a college. The 3,200 senior members of the University (those engaged in teaching and research) vote for the Vice only and cannot be reelected; they also vote for the two governing councils, for the faculty committees, the library committees, and the administration. At the same time, as «Fellows» (члены Совета) of their own college, they appoint new fellows, select students from the many who apply to enter the university, organize the finances and take on many practical responsibilities.

Task 3 Read the article «Academic Student Life in the US»

Academic year is usually nine month duration, or two semesters of 4 and a half months each. Classes usually begin in September and end in July. There are summer classes for those who want to improve the grades or take up additional courses.

During one term or semester, a student will study, simultaneously (одновременно), four or five different subjects. At the undergraduate level, there may be some courses that every student has to take (for example, classes in world history, math, writing or research). But students select their major plus a number of electives (факультативные курсы) (courses they do not have to take, but may choose). The students’ progress is often assessed through quizzes (short oral or written tests), term papers and a final examination in each course. Typically, an undergraduate student has to earn a number of credits (about 120) in order to receive degree at the end of four years of college. Credits are earned by attending lectures (or lab classes) and by successfully completing assignments and examinations. One credit usually equals one hour of class per week in a single course. A three-credit course in biology could involve two hours of lectures plus one hour in a science lab every week. The course may last 10 to 16 weeks - the length of a semester. Any student may audit a course, that is to take up an extra course for personal interest without earning credits, it must be paid for on an hourly basis.

Each part of a student’s work in a course is given a mark which helps to determine his final grade. A student record consists of his grade in each course. College grades, determined by each instructor on the basis of class work and examinations, are usually on a five-point scale, with letters to indicate the levels of achievement. A - is the highest mark, indicating superior accomplishment (достижение), and the letters go through B, C, D to E or F which denotes failure. Many schools assign points for each grade (A=5, B=4, etc.) so that grade point average (3,5) is required to continue in school and to graduate.

Work with the article given step by step:

Skim the article.

Define the aims of a publication.

Copy out the key-sentences from each paragraph.

Make a summary of article.

Abridge a summary to annotation.

obviously solved more quickly by experimenters than by theorists. Another viewpoint is that theory serves to suggest new experiments. This is sound, but it makes the theorist the handman of the experimenter, and he may not like this auxiliary role. Still another viewpoint is that theory serves to discourage the waste of time on making useless experiments.

Let us try to flatter theory by giving it a definition that shall not describe it as a mere handmaid of experiment or a mere device for saving time. I suggest that theory is an intellectual instrument granting a deep and indescribable contentment to its designer and to its users. This instrument is made up of units which can be compared, for instance, to different branches of physics: solid state physics, relativity, acoustics, elementary particles and others, which sometimes have only a remote

relation with one another and may not even be interconnected at all. The rest of my talk will be devoted to a different question which is: how are we going to communicate to the layman some of our passion for our science? This is a very important question, for eveiyone is a layman until he becomes a scientist. If we can solve the problem of interesting the layman we may succeed in attracting the potential Fer-mis. Slaters, Lands and Fletchers of future into the field of, say, physics. Nothing could be more desirable.

A frequent technique is that of surprise. The trouble with this is

that one cannot be surprised if one is not accustomed to the situation which is nullified by the surprise. Imagine, for example, a physicist trying to surprise an audience of laymen by telling them that there are a dozen elementary particles instead of two or three, or that the newest cyclotron imparts an energy of 500 mev to protons. It simply will not work, because the listeners will have no background to compare this information with. It is also a mistake to think that we can excite an audience by solving a mystery for them. The trouble here is that practically no one is interested in the answer to a question which he never thought of asking.

Relativity had a wonderful build-up in the decade before 1905, for

the physicists of that era were acquainted with the sequence of experiments which were designed to show that the earth moves rela-tively to the ether and which obstinately showed the opposite. Each stage in the unfolding of quantum mechanics was exciting to the physicists who knew the earlier stages, because they knew the problems which were left unsolved. The writer of a detective story creates the mystery before he solves it; but the mystery usually begins with the discovery of a murdered man, and this is considerably more exciting than a murdered theory. The corresponding technique in physics consists in trying to create a particular state of out-of-dateness in the mind of the public, in the expectation of bringing them up-to-date at the end of the lecture or paper. There is too much risk of leaving the audience in the out-of-date condition, and this technique cannot be recommended. Another mistake, in my opinion at least, is that of stressing a paradox.

Try telling an audience that if you know the exact position of a particle you cannot know its momentum, and vice versa - the effect is unpredictable but obviously not what you wanted. Still another mistake is that of springing an isolated fact upon the audience. An isolated fact is not science and it is not interesting. Facts are of interest only as parts of a system. And we must strive to interest the layman in the system.

Task 7.1. Copy out the words equivalent to: весьма желательно иметь хорошее определение, предпринять, не задумываясь; ограничить возможные результаты своей деятельности; расширение знаний приносит пользу, образуют простую, но строгую систему; теории имеют настолько сложный и запутанный характер; вспомогательная функция; предотвращать потерю времени; приносящий глубокое удовлетворение.

Task 7.2. Give Russian equivalents of a nameless opposite; searching; outcome of your research; immediate practical value; research can be counted upon as leading; in the long run, if not in the short; a very powerful argument for.

Task 7.3. Give Russian equivalents of the underlying simplicity; the handman of the experimenter; a device for saving time; a remote relation.

Task 7.4. Concentrate on the opening question and the possible answers considered by the author. Make up a summary of the text in three sentences in Russian.